My Christmas Challenge

As always, it has been quite a while since I last posted.  I always think about it and all the things I would say when I post, but then I never end up doing it!  My bad.  The funny thing is, I actually really do not mind writing everything down, it is just getting myself to sit still long enough to write a post.  As I am writing this, I am currently laying on the couch in my parents’ home on Christmas day, after being up all night from being sick.  Not exactly the way I planned on spending Christmas morning.  Typically, we are up at the “crack of dawn” (aka 8:00) for our breakfast of pancakes, bacon and sausage.  The one-day every year that all four of us sit down for breakfast together.  Also, the one-day a year mom would bring bacon in the house.  This year I was actually planning on having the bacon too!  Following breakfast, we typically do our gifts as a family of four and part way through the morning, the family from Jersey, and Pennsylvania arrives and it just becomes a great chaotic mess of fun! 

This year is going to be different.  I knew as of yesterday afternoon that it was going to be different.  At first, I was upset because I was going to miss my “traditional Christmas.”  Then within two seconds of thinking that negative thought, another thought popped into my mind.  This is Christmas.  This isn’t about tradition.  It is about celebrating the birth of Christ.  It is about the fact that God, the God of the universe, came down in human form just so that we will be able to have our sins forgiven, so that we can have an amazing relationship with Him (God).  The more I thought about it, the less important the “traditional Christmas” became and the more excited I got about what Christmas really means. 

As I’m sure you all know, I believe that there is one true God.  I believe that He created the world, and His most prized possession in that beautiful creation is us humans.  He created each and every one of us, and He loves ALL of us dearly!  He did not just create us and spend time planning out every detail of who we are just to forget about us.  No, in fact, He created us to have a relationship with us.  When you look at Genesis, before sin entered the world, God spent time with Adam and Eve.  They interacted with each other.  They had a true connection.  Unfortunately, sin did enter the world through choices made by Adam and Eve.  And because God is Holy, sin cannot be near to Him.  It is like oil and water.  They cannot mix.  This broke His heart.  Because of that sin, it became impossible for humans to ever be able to have that true personal relationship with Him, meaning that there was no chance for humans to be able to come live with Him in Heaven.  But because God is love, He could not stand to be apart from His children.  So, here comes the true meaning of Christmas, He sent down His Son to intervene for us!  Jesus came to save us!  He is the true super hero if there ever was one.  Forget Superman, who needs him when you have Jesus!  (No offense if you’re a Superman person!) 

Back in the times of the Old Testament, the first part of the Bible, in order to ask for forgiveness for your sins, people had to sacrifice animals.  That is why you’ll hear us Christians say that Jesus is the Living Sacrifice.  Jesus became that final sacrifice so that we no more had to live under the law of having to sacrifice animals for forgiveness.  We got much more out of the deal than not having to kill animals!  We got that relationship back with God!   The moment Jesus died on the cross, the veil was torn in the Tabernacle separating the Holy of Holies where only certain priests could go to commune with God.  That tear in the veil symbolizes us being able to come to God no matter who we are, where we are, or what we want to come to Him about.  That, my friends, is the coolest thing ever! 

Not only are we able to go to Him with anything, because of His death on the cross, we are also able to have the Holy Spirit live and reside within us.  The Holy Spirit is another amazing aspect of God.  He is the link between us here on earth and our Heavenly Father (God).  When the Holy Spirit comes to live within us, we are able to have that connection again with God, like they had in the Garden of Eden.  Not only are we able to talk to God, but He also talks to us through the Holy Spirit!  It is not always, nor is it commonly an audible voice, but it can manifest in many different ways including strong feelings, getting a verse in your mind, or song lyrics in your mind, or having an image come to mind.  All these things are common ways, but not even close to a complete list of ways the Holy Spirit can be used to communicate with us. 

So what all does this have to do with Christmas again?  Well, if it were not for Christmas, none of this would have occurred.  Christmas is when we celebrate the birth of Christ!  Since He came as a human, He did have to have an actual birth!  So, it is the start of the greatest man who ever walked the face of the earth’s amazing life.  And it is definitely something to be celebrated!  It should really be the biggest birthday bash you ever celebrate! 

I realized when I was having those thoughts about bumming about missing my “traditional Christmas” that I was celebrating tradition, not the birth of my Savior!  That really hit me hard.  I always would say no, its not about the gifts for me, its about the family time, and everyone getting together!  But, it’s not even about that if you do not take any time at all to celebrate Jesus and what He did for us!  I realized that I had fallen completely into the world of the societal part of Christmas with the Christmas trees, Santa, and gifts.  Now don’t get me wrong, I am not by any means saying that it is a bad thing to join in on the festiveness of the societal part of the holiday.  However, what I am saying is to not be like me in that when that part gets taken away from you, it comes to your attention that you feel like you have nothing more to celebrate.  It should really be the opposite way around, when you take out the Jesus part of Christmas; you have nothing more to celebrate!  Because that is the truth!  So, a challenge for me now is to realign my thinking and really focus on Jesus and what He means to me before anything else in life.  It really helps to de-clutter your life and your train of thought.  So, praise the Lord for forgiveness and for the fact that Christ came down to earth to die on the cross that we may have forgiveness.  I know I sure need it!

Merry Christmas all! 

Thanksgiving!

 

Sooo... I wrote this last Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, but I forgot to post it until now! OOPs! So just read it as if it is then! :)

This year I get to celebrate Thanksgiving in a different way.  I am finding that I have a different view of what Thanksgiving really is.  I always just looked at it as a day that the entire family gets together and eats lots and lots of food.  Yesterday, it hit me, when it was Thanksgiving, but I was not celebrating in that way.  Why was I not celebrating that way you ask?  Well, I live in England now.  And it is not exactly a holiday here.  (However, I do live with some Americans and awesome non-Americans who are more than happy to celebrate with us, so we will be celebrating today!)   Anyway, I was realizing that I have so so much to be thankful for.  Every morning we start off our day going around in a “circle of thanksgiving” thanking the Lord for anything and everything that we have to be thankful for.  And yesterday, Thanksgiving, it just really hit me how much I truly have to be thankful for. 

You want to hear something funny?!  Even though yesterday, I was not able to celebrate a traditional American style Thanksgiving, I feel that I celebrated Thanksgiving in the way that it war meant to be celebrated.  We went through our normal Thursday schedule of morning Psalms, (reading the psalms together), morning prayer, breakfast, quiet time, cleaning work duties, lunch, then News (where we watch the world news and then pray about the events that we see in the news) worship, then free time, dinner, then the Cambridge House of Prayer.  Obviously that is an abridged version of the schedule, but you get the picture.  But as I was saying, I feel like I truly actually appreciated and was thankful for what it is that I do have.  I have an amazing family at home who loves and cares for me, amazing friends back home and all over the United States who care for me, and an amazing family right here in Cambridge. 

As we were having our Prayer and Worship time, I was just really struck by how blessed I am.  I am surrounded by such a loving group of people who all have the same desire to know and worship the Lord.  They have such a heart and passion for people.  It is so encouraging.  When I really start to think about it, we spend many hours a week in prayer praying for people right in Cambridge and all around the world.  At first I felt like we were not really doing anything, but God honors prayers.  Not saying that He will answer every single prayer in the exact way we believe they should be answered, but He does hear them.  It makes a difference!  When we pray, words are not empty, they have substance.  They matter!  So all the time we spend in prayer, praying for God’s people right here and around the world, does something major.  That is why prayer is so important. 

Also, God wants to hear from us!  He wants to talk to us and wants us to talk to Him.  He loves us.  I mean He did create us after all!  It makes Him smile when we take time to spend with Him each and everyday whether that is in corporate prayer or time alone just with you and Him.  Time alone with you and Him can look like anything.  It can just be walking down the street, doing dishes, driving down the street, anything at all!  God is right there with you at all times.  It does not mean you necessarily have to talk to Him out loud.  Just like with a close friend when you are together in the car, you sometimes sit in silence, but just the presence of the friend being there is enough.  God loves any time you spend with Him and honors it!

Okay back from my random prayer tangent.  Ooops!  So my point about mentioning prayer is just realizing how amazing the people I live with are!  I have never met people more in love with God and with His people in my life.  My family here in Cambridge don’t even have to know the people they are praying for, yet they will feel for them as if they were their own friends and family.  That is so inspiring to me!  If that is how they feel about strangers, imagine the love they show to each other here!  Awesome right!? I am just so blessed to be able to have this be my life!  My life is training to be a missionary.  That is my real life!  And I am able to do that…for real!  I mean yes, it is EXTREMELY different than what I am used to.  For those who know me, I did have to make a lot of changes when it comes to habits such as well the obvious, shopping.  But it is crazy, the transition was a lot easier than I thought.  So, I am so thankful for all that God has provided for me!  The road may definitely get bumpy at times, but He is still the one who designed the road, so I know I am in good hands and it will all work out for my good!  I am also so thankful for all of you who have supported me either through encouraging words, prayers, or through financial support!  I would not be where I am if it were not for all of you, so a huge thank you goes out to all of you!

I will go back and fill you all in on what went on the last few weeks, like going to GERMANY in a bit!  We are celebrating Thanksgiving today, in addition to our regular schedule, so it is going to be crazy busy!  EXCITING stuff!  Some general prayer requests for our team would probably be, well it is cold season and since we live in community and we also learned how to share in preschool, we tend to share sicknesses, so just prayers for overall health would be greatly appreciated!  Thank you EVERYONE!

Hearing God's Voice

Soo, I am quite behind on reporting what has happened over the past few weeks.  Week four was lead by a man named Henning.  The topic of that week’s lecture was all about hearing God’s voice.  I was a little nervous for this topic because hearing God’s voice is something that I always struggled with.  I knew God spoke to me here and there, but I did not completely understand how exactly it was that God spoke to me or how I was to interpret what it is that He would say to me.  I did not think that God would speak to me in ways that could help bring encouragement to a situation, a friend, or even to myself.  I knew that people would get words from God or would get pictures.  However, I never really got anything like that before.  Here and there I would get something, but not often and I would just talk it down to me just having an active imagination. 

When in fact, God is a relational God.  “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.”  (John 10:27)  God would not create us and then not communicate with us.  Just as you get to know a human more and more, the better you get to know their voice and understand what they are meaning when they speak.  When you know them really well, you do not even need to see them to know it is them speaking.  Henning encouraged us to spend time with the Lord to get to know Him better so we can get to know His voice better.  As it says in Luke 4:18-19, The spirit of the Lord is on us, so He is with us at all times therefore He is there to speak to and communicate with us at all times. 

That week’s lessons left me with a lot of crazy emotions and thoughts running around in my head.  I needed a time to just sit and have a complete quiet time with God.  So Wednesday afternoon when we were all going to head out to outreach, I decided to stay in the church that we meet in at the center of town.  It was such a great peaceful time.  I was able to process through some of the things that Henning said.  A lot of what he said was really helpful, while some other things were difficult to process.  It left me feeling a little confused at times, but God works through that.  When we get confused about life or about something that people share with us about God, that is when we need to push even more into God to see what it is He is trying to reveal to us.  Read His Word, the Bible, to see what it is He is actually saying.  Talk to others who you trust, and simply just pray.  After a bit of time, I was able to process out what I needed to process through.  It was great to have that quiet time in the Church just for time with God and me.  That week was a good, trying, yet encouraging week.  It was good stuff!

On a random just what happened in the week note, it was one of the guys from our team’s birthday, so we went to this really cool old pub, called The Eagle.  It is the location where the discovery of DNA occurred.  Fun fact, right?!  So, basically it was a great evening of relaxation and chatting with friends! J They had amazing food as well! Which was just awesome!  Alright, enough rambling for this week.  Talk to you all again soon!  

Break From The Mold

I cannot believe how fast time is flying by!  This week was so fun yet so busy!  This week we had Rick Wilkerson speak on Culture of Revival: Whole-hearted worship.  He had some amazing points including the fact that we all have a purpose in life; God did not create us to be robots.  We should not just be Christians on autopilot.  God wants us to get to know Him and relate to Him that way we are able to pray what it is He wants us to pray.  He wants us to partner with Him.  He wants us to abide in Him.  “Slow down and talk to God!”  Just like in the parable of the 10 Virgins in Matthew 25, we need to take time to spend time with Jesus, abiding in Him so that we will be ready for Him when He comes.  Are you Ready?  Did you take time to buy the oil ahead of time?

In the later half of the week we had a road trip up to the Beacon House of Prayer in Stoke-On-Trent.  On the way up, we stopped in at Derby to visit the DTS there.  Their DTS is a smaller group, but they have a beautiful old house with multiple stories and many rooms!  It was such a neat place to visit. (Especially with me loving architecture and all!) That evening we played fish bowl!  I love that game!  It was so nice to just look around the room and see how much of a family we have all become already.  It is such a comforting feeling being surrounded by people all with the same love for our Awesome God. 

The next morning, we got up early, as we always do, and headed over to Stoke to the Beacon House of Prayer.  I had no idea what to expect when we got there.  Basically it was a group of believers who have a passion for praying and interceding for the nations.  We had a lot of time in worship, as well as a lot of time praying for each other and for all the nations of the world.  In addition, we spent some time discussing what we all do at our individual houses of prayer to see if we could come up with a way to organize and plan out how to move forward expanding and bettering each individual house of prayer.  During one of the prayer times, we broke up into small groups to discuss the topic of the last session.  God however had a different plan in mind for my group.  I was with three ladies from different houses of prayer and then one of the leaders from my DTS, Hannah.  The three ladies really felt a call to pray for Hannah and me.  It was amazing!  These ladies knew nothing about either of us, but the words God spoke through them hit home for both of us.  For me, they received:

            A flat needle meaning God is going to weave together things in my life that I never thought could be put back together, or even together for the first time.

            A compass meaning that God is revealing to me the direction He is going to be sending me in soon.  The flat needle also tied in as the pointer for the compass showing that I will be sewing into people and pointing others in the direction they will be going and sending them out.

            I was also given Zephaniah 3:17- “The Lord your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves.  He will take great delight in you; in His love He will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing.”  The person who gave me that also said that she could just picture God taking me in His arms and holding me, telling me I am His child.  That was a cool one to get!

 

Basically, this past week included a lot of growing and stretching.  The whole people getting words for me from God is very new to me.  It was a lot to process.  I know it is something that occurs, and occurs often, but until moving here, I had never had anyone get words from God for me.  It is such an amazing thing that our God, the God of the universe wants to speak directly to us.  He wants to spend time with each of us.  We are His children.  He created us to love on us and to spend time with us.  He would not just create us and then never communicate with us.  In addition, I had a lot to process about what Rick said about abiding in Christ, so it was good to have this week to process it.    

This week we also had a lot of fun bonding time as a team.  A group of us went rock climbing, which was so much fun!  We also had a bunch of movie nights as well as game nights!  It is amazing how after only a few weeks, we can feel like we have known each other for quite a while. 

                                                        The Girls from the rock climbing group!

                                                                    Game night teams!

One major way God has been working in my life is that He is teaching me how to break from the mold.  For starters, you have to learn to be quite flexible when on a DTS.  Basically you have to learn to go with the flow.  It is all great stuff that we are doing, you just find out about it last minute at times.  It is good for me though because it is teaching me to be okay with not having an exact schedule.  In addition, as many people know, I am weird with food!  To say weird with food is obviously an understatement.  However, I eat everything that is served to me.  Meaning, I try all the different types of food that is prepared.  I actually enjoy most of it too!  God gave me that extra push that I needed to eat the meat!  It’s great! I know that sounds childish, and well yes it is, but that part of my life needed a lot of maturing.  

                                                                 Me Carving the Chicken!

One fun way that God taught me to break from the mold is baking a cake without a recipe.  If any of you know me, well I do not know how to work without instructions.  I have lists and order and recipes.  That is how my brain works and functions.  But one of my friends here challenged me to break from that and make something without a recipe.  He picked out all the ingredients that would go in and we just threw stuff in without measuring.  It was actually really fun!  It turned out pretty decent.  Let’s be real it was not the best cake I have ever made, but it was good.  

 Sorry for the insanely long post.  And for the fact that I am a week behind, I will get into a routine of it soon enough...Let's hope.  Still getting used to the whole blogging thing.

God, the missionary God.

If I learned nothing else from this trip so far, I learned that God is Love and that He loves us more than anything.  He has a funny way of bringing you on adventures that move and amaze you.  If you asked me three months ago what I would be doing right now, I would never have guessed that I would be living in Cambridge England with an amazing group of people.  In just over one week’s time, I feel like our team, which is made up of 9 students, and almost just as many leaders/staff, is already family.  This place feels like home, and it is amazing.

So, to rewind a bit, I arrived in Cambridge last Sunday at around 1:30pm just in time to join the team for lunch.  People continued to arrive throughout the rest of the day.  It was really exciting to meet the people who I would be living in community with for the next nine months of my life.  We spent the remainder of Sunday getting to know each other, settling into our houses, and hanging out.  To say we live in community is quite a valid statement.  We live in three houses all in the same neighborhood.  There is a girls’ house with 5 students, and two young adult leaders, then the guys’ house has 4 students and 2 young adult leaders and finally, the head leader of the YWAM Cambridge DTS and his wife and new adorable baby live in the third house. 

The DTS officially started off on Monday.  They decided a good way to have us get to know the area would be to have us go on a scavenger hunt throughout the city of Cambridge.  (Side note:  We live in Arbury, which is a short bike ride away from the city center, so getting to and from town is quite an easy commute.)  We students decided to do the scavenger hunt together as one group so we could get to know each other better.  (At this time, only 7 of the 9 of us had arrived because of Visa issues, and a broken hand that potentially needed surgery.)  It was a beautiful, sunny day in Cambridge, so it was a fantastic day to explore!  To say that Cambridge is a beautiful city is a major understatement.  Going around the city just reminded me of how creative God is.  I, being obsessed with architecture, was in awe of the beautiful, historic buildings, streets, and alleyways that make up the city. 

As I was biking/walking around God reminded whispered to me, “See this here; this is for you.  I brought you here to share with you my artwork.”  It was really neat to see because as people would ask me why I chose Cambridge.  I really had no answer.  God didn’t say to me, “Becca, I want you to go to Cambridge.”  To be honest, the name of my particular DTS sounded cool.  It is titled, Revival and Reformation.  The focus is more of a revival and reformation in Cambridge, but well, I want revival and reformation within my life!  So, I said alright, sign me up!  It was just really neat to have God affirm to me that I am in the right place.

Teaching started the next day.  Basically the week is scheduled to have teaching Tuesday and Wednesday mornings, as well as Tuesday evenings.  We have prayer and worship for two hours every afternoon, which is AMAZING!  The people from this team are so talented!  The musical ability that makes up this team is astonishing.  Not that amazing ability is what is needed for worship, but let’s be real, it is an extra perk!  It is such a blessing to be able to worship with people who worship with their whole heart.  It is not just saying the words to the song, but it is living the lyrics.  The worship is ALIVE!  After prayer and worship, we typically have some free time, unless it’s your rotation to cook dinner.  YES, that includes me!  I will be learning to cook here!  It’ll definitely be an adventure!  In the evenings, we will either have free time, planned events, or we will go to Cambridge House of Prayer (on Thursdays) where we get together with Christians around the area who have a passion and heart for prayer.  We have a lot of other activities scheduled within our week, however, I will not bore you with the details now.  I can explain more at a later time.   

 One major part of our week is outreach.  We have outreach every Saturday.  The first time we went on outreach, I was paired up with Peter, the leader.  Outreach includes walking around the city, talking to people, hearing about their lives, and sharing the Gospel with them.  Anyway, the first person Peter and I came to, Malachi, was really interested in what we had to say.  He was involved in the conversation.  To my surprise, he was not just listening to be polite, he was actually actively listening.  Now, knowing God, I should not have been surprised that He is able to work through simple interactions to bring people to Himself, but I was surprised.  And I am so happy to share that Malachi came to the Lord that afternoon!!!   Malachi was not the only person who came to the Lord last week.  Four others gave their lives to Christ, and one woman was healed of a pretty major knee injury where she lived in constant pain.

I would love to go on an on sharing in major detail everything that is happening while I am here, however, then I would be writing a book.  I do want to share some overall highlights about the teaching that has been happening here so far.  The first week, we had the privilege of having Shephen Mbewe speak to us.  Shephen is an amazing man of Christ who has so much to share.  He reminded us that God is a missionary God.  He is a God of the nations, not just a God for a select few.  We are not to reduce God to small tribal gods who are only there for your and your family’s needs, but to realize that He is there for all and we must not keep Him to ourselves.  It is not our responsibility to bring salvation to people, but to carry the Gospel to people and to bridge the gap between the unreached and God’s Truth. 

The speaker for our second week was our own leader, Peter.  He spoke on Jesus: the God-man.  He reminded us that Jesus was fully man when He was here on earth.  Jesus grew up right here on earth like everyone else.  He asked questions, learned, submitted Himself to His parents.  He got hungry.  He got thirsty.  He got tired.  He was betrayed and misunderstood.  Yes, we have all heard that before, but do we really think of what that means.  He left everything He had up in Heaven to come down to face agony just for us all so that He could be united with us once again.  That is love.  True love.  I have truly been in awe of what God has done in my life with all the teachings, worship, and quiet times that have occurred over the past few weeks.  I am so blessed to be able to have this experience and to share it with such amazing people. 

I am going to end with an amazing poem that Peter shared with us.  It is called, The Vision, by Pete Greig. 

          

So this guy comes up to me and says "what's the vision? What's the big idea?" I open my mouth and words come out like this… The vision?
The vision is JESUS – obsessively, dangerously, undeniably Jesus.
The vision is an army of young people.
You see bones? I see an army. And they are FREE from materialism.
They laugh at 9-5 little prisons. They could eat caviar on Monday and crusts on Tuesday. They wouldn't even notice. They know the meaning of the Matrix, the way the west was won. They are mobile like the wind, they belong to the nations. They need no passport.. People write their addresses in pencil and wonder at their strange existence. They are free yet they are slaves of the hurting and dirty and dying. What is the vision ? The vision is holiness that hurts the eyes. It makes children laugh and adults angry. It gave up the game of minimum integrity long ago to reach for the stars. It scorns the good and strains for the best. It is dangerously pure.
Light flickers from every secret motive, every private conversation. It loves people away from their suicide leaps, their Satan games. This is an army that will lay down its life for the cause. A million times a day its soldiers choose to lose that they might one day win the great 'Well done' of faithful sons and daughters.
Such heroes are as radical on Monday morning as Sunday night. They don't need fame from names. Instead they grin quietly upwards and hear the crowds chanting again and again: "COME ON!"
And this is the sound of the underground The whisper of history in the making Foundations shaking Revolutionaries dreaming once again Mystery is scheming in whispers Conspiracy is breathing… This is the sound of the underground
And the army is discipl(in)ed.
Young people who beat their bodies into submission.
Every soldier would take a bullet for his comrade at arms. The tattoo on their back boasts "for me to live is Christ and to die is gain".
Sacrifice fuels the fire of victory in their upward eyes. Winners. Martyrs. Who can stop them ? Can hormones hold them back? Can failure succeed? Can fear scare them or death kill them ?
And the generation prays like a dying man with groans beyond talking, with warrior cries, sulphuric tears and with great barrow loads of laughter! Waiting. Watching: 24 – 7 – 365.
Whatever it takes they will give: Breaking the rules. Shaking mediocrity from its cosy little hide. Laying down their rights and their precious little wrongs, laughing at labels, fasting essentials. The advertisers cannot mould them. Hollywood cannot hold them. Peer-pressure is powerless to shake their resolve at late night parties before the cockerel cries.
They are incredibly cool, dangerously attractive inside.
On the outside? They hardly care. They wear clothes like costumes to communicate and celebrate but never to hide. Would they surrender their image or their popularity? They would lay down their very lives - swap seats with the man on death row - guilty as hell. A throne for an electric chair.
With blood and sweat and many tears, with sleepless nights and fruitless days, they pray as if it all depends on God and live as if it all depends on them.
Their DNA chooses JESUS. (He breathes out, they breathe in.) Their subconscious sings. They had a blood transfusion with Jesus. Their words make demons scream in shopping centres. Don't you hear them coming? Herald the weirdo's! Summon the losers and the freaks. Here come the frightened and forgotten with fire in their eyes. They walk tall and trees applaud, skyscrapers bow, mountains are dwarfed by these children of another dimension. Their prayers summon the hounds of heaven and invoke the ancient dream of Eden.
And this vision will be. It will come to pass; it will come easily; it will come soon. How do I know? Because this is the longing of creation itself, the groaning of the Spirit, the very dream of God. My tomorrow is his today. My distant hope is his 3D. And my feeble, whispered, faithless prayer invokes a thunderous, resounding, bone-shaking great 'Amen!' from countless angels, from hero's of the faith, from Christ himself. And he is the original dreamer, the ultimate winner.
Guaranteed.

Wow.  That is all I have to say about that.  Wow.  I want that to be me.  I want my DNA to choose Jesus, and I pray the same for you too!

            

 

When Life Gives You Lemons...

Okay, so this post has nothing to do with me going to Cambridge, but I was thinking about this last night, so I wrote this and now here it is...

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.  Right?  Is it really possible for us as humans to make something good out of something sour?  Because if all you were given were the lemons, isn’t it just lemon juice you are making?  So you’re taking something sour and making it into something else sour.  All you are doing is changing the form of the sour item.  In order to make lemonade, even if you are just making it in the simplest form, you need to add sugar and water in order to make it something you would like to drink.  So in life, if all we do to try to fix a not good or “sour” situation is use our own abilities, we will just change the shape or the consistency of the situation.  Where am I going with this?  Well, that is a good question.  I really honestly do not know.  I am just writing down my thoughts right now and my thoughts are focused on sucky, sour situations.  The obvious destination I will eventually end up is that as humans, when we are given situations, or lemons, we are not capable of doing anything to make something good out of it without being given extra ingredients.  That is obviously where God comes in.  He provides the necessary ingredients to make anything in this world filled with sin any good.  He gave us Jesus, (the sugar) who counteracts the acidity of the lemons or of our sin, and He gave us the Holy Spirit, or the Living Water (in our case of lemonade, the water).  So, next time someone tells you when life gives you lemons, make lemonade, remember, it is not up to you to change that situation because you really cannot do it alone.  Instead, turn to God, because He is really the only One who can turn lemons into delicious lemonade. 

Moving To Cambridge....

Hey Friends!

God has given me an awesome opportunity to move to Cambridge, England this September 21, for six months to attend a Discipleship Training School through Youth With A Mission (YWAM).  A Discipleship Training School (DTS) is the first step to become a missionary with YWAM.  Every missionary with YWAM has to attend and complete a DTS.  It is a program to train and build up future missionaries in order to send them out into the nations.  YWAM believes it is important to spend time becoming educated and focused on what you will be doing once you are sent into the field on outreach. 

For example, a person who is going into medical missions would spend a few months learning the procedures they will carry out during their time in outreach.  They will also be taught how to integrate the Gospel into their interactions with the people they will be serving.  The Discipleship Training Schools focus on five key features:

1.     “To GATHER and CHALLENGE people to worship, listen to and obey God, releasing them (in the context of the DTS) to serve through evangelism, intercession, acts of compassion and other expressions of God’s heart for the world, possibly even pioneering new ministries.

2.     To INSPIRE and CULTIVATE growth in one’s relationship with God resulting in Christ like character, which is based on a solid Biblical foundation, the work of the Holy Spirit and the personal application of Biblical truth, especially concerning God’s Character, the Cross and empowering Grace.

3.     To SHARPEN one’s ability to relate to, learn from and work with people, including those of different cultures, personalities and perspectives.

4.     To further EQUIP each one to serve God’s purposes either in or outside of YWAM Family of Ministries, strengthening a commitment to reach the lost, especially the unreached, to care for the poor, and to influence all areas of society.

5.     To IMPART the vision and foundational values of Youth With A Mission International as well as that of the host operating location and to provide information regarding a variety of opportunities for service.”                                                                                                                         (http://ywamcambridge.com/#revival)

In addition to being in “class” and while in Cambridge, I will be spending the majority of my time spreading the Gospel through serving the community in the immediate area.  At the end of my six months in Cambridge, I will be sent out to put into practice all that I learned while attending the “lecture” part of the DTS. 

The location that I will be sent to has not yet been disclosed, and will probably not be disclosed until around December.  However, I was told that the YWAM base I am going to focuses on India, Africa, and China.  I will then live in one of those locations for three additional months, serving the Lord and His people there.  While in my assigned location, I will be living among and serving the community in a variety of different ways.  On previous outreaches, this has included hosting church camps (similar to a Vacation Bible School), assisting on building and repair projects, leading worship, and simply loving on and building relationships with people.

I will be living as a training missionary and will not have an income to pay for my living expenses.  And since living life costs money, here is where you all come in!

I am asking that you prayerfully consider supporting me through this next phase in my life.  I am in need of both financial and/or prayer support.  Any support you are able to give is much appreciated!  My financial needs will include airfare to get to England, my outreach location, and back home to the United States; the cost of housing and food while both in England and my outreach; my visa to live to live overseas; and finally, the vaccinations that I will need for going on outreach.  The total cost I am fundraising is around $10,000-$12,000. 

With that being said, any little bit helps!  If you are not able to give financially, your gift of time in prayer is also greatly appreciated. I ask that you may specifically be praying for: the funds to be provided; good health for myself and my team; and my relationship with God, that I will continue to turn to and trust in Him through this amazing, scary, crazy, stretching experience I have coming up.  Finally, and most importantly, for the people we will be reaching both in Cambridge and in the outreach. 

If you desire to give financially, donations may be sent to Grace Community Church, 327 E. Broad Street, Souderton, PA 18964.  In order for your donation to be tax deductible, checks should be written out to Grace Community Church with Cambridge, England in the memo line.  Grace will know that the donation is for my YWAM account.  (If my name is written on the memo line, the donation will not be tax deductible.)  If you feel more comfortable having my name associated with the donation, add a separate note with my name on it in the envelope.  Grace will keep my donations together until they are sent in to YWAM.  Thank you in advance for your consideration and prayers.

P.S. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me!  I would love to discuss the details with you!

http://ywamcambridge.com/

Well Here It Goes...

Hi Everyone!

     I guess I just need to start writing, otherwise I am just going to continue to stare at this curser blinking on the screen.  To tell you the truth, I really never understood the purpose of blogs because who really thinks that other people actually want to read all about their day or what they have to say.  However, I have been told by many people that I need to start a blog so that people can keep up with what I am doing and where I am going over the next nine months.  Before I go into what it is I am doing, I should rewind and introduce myself to anyone who would potentially be reading this who does not know me.
     My name is Becca Thompson.  I am 23 years old and am just rounding out the year of my quarter life crisis.  Last year at this time (well kind of this time, more like a year and two months ago) I had just called off my wedding.  I did not exactly know what to do with myself, so I quickly applied to and started grad school at Marywood University.  I was so excited to start because I am a nerd and I actually like school.  I would like to say that if I could make a career of going to school, I would just keep getting degrees.  Unfortunately, that is not the case in the real world, so I settled on going to grad school to get my Master's in Social Work.  Luckily for me, since my bachelor's is in Social Work, I was able to cut off half of the program, so I already had twenty-one credits completed before I even stepped foot onto the campus. 
     Everything was going great with my classes!  I loved my classes, and I LOVED my professors!  However, the end of the semester came quickly and it was time to declare our concentrations.  I had NO IDEA what I wanted to concentrate in.  I started evaluating my life and realized that I did not know if I really wanted to have a career in social work.  I started to realize that I loved the idea of being a social worker, but I did not actually love the reality of being a social worker.  So, instead of throwing more money into school, I decided to take a semester off and try out accounting.  Well, I tried it.  That's about it.  The material was easy enough, but lets just say it was BORING!  I am SO not cut out for a job that sits and stares at numbers all day!  So, on my birthday, March 3, I started classes for Real Estate.  For anyone who knows me, that is the ideal job for me!  I have been obsessed with real estate since I was well, I do not even know when I started loving it.  It was before I can remember though.  I took both the required classes, passed the classes and was just about to take the State and National exams, which are required to be passed in order to get your license, when God intervened.  (Do not worry, I did take and pass the exams)
     He woke me up and showed me that for my entire life, I had been living for the glory of Becca Thompson, not for the Glory of the Lord.  Things that once made sense to me, did not make sense anymore.  And things that did not make sense to me, started making sense.  Selling houses just seemed like a waste of time for me at this time when there was so much that God wanted to show me and to teach me.  The funny thing is, He was trying to tell me that all year, but I just refused to listen.  I even remember talking to my mom back in late October about how I really felt like I did not fit in any typical career and that all I wanted to do was to pick up my life and go into missions.  However, it was a good thing I did not do that then because God still had so much to teach me about Himself, about life, and about myself.  Don't get me wrong, I still have so much to learn! 
     Anyway, after a series of events, which I will get into another time, I ended up applying to Youth With a Mission (YWAM) to attend one of their Discipleship Training Schools (DTS).  A DTS is kind of like a training ground to build up and send out future missionaries.  Not everyone who attends and completes a DTS will continue in missions when they finish, which is why the Discipleship Training Schools teach people how to be a Disciple right where you are; whether that is going back to school, back to your career, or back into the mission field.
     YWAM has bases that hold Discipleship Training Schools all over the world.  The base that I ended up applying to is in Cambridge, England.  Each school has the same basic curriculum, however, each is unique in that it will have its own theme or focus.  The DTS I am attending is called, Revival and Reformation.  I do not have any cool God story as to how I selected this particular location.  All I have is the fact that the title Revival and Reformation sounded fascinating to me, so I contacted the leader to get more information.
     With all that being said, I am leaving in (God willing) 19 short days!  Yikes!  I still have so much to do to get ready.  However, I know that God has all of this under control and will take my hand and walk me through it all.  Just in the last week, He has provided left and right by providing a Church willing to help maintain my funds, my job allowing me the day off to run to Philly to attempt to get my Visa in order, having a family friend go through the drive through at work and ask me to send her a fundraising letter, and so much more!  Alright, I guess that is enough to start with.  I will have to add more to fill in the many blanks spaces I left in my story later.